Protect outbound feeds from reader-breaking characters

[azurelunatic]

Title:
Protect outbound feeds from reader-breaking characters

Area:
feeds, the greater internet, making things make sense

Summary:
Automatically detect characters that are likely to break offsite software attempting to read journal feeds, and strip those characters/truncate the feed with a notice that this has been done. This would help offsite readers get feeds from Dreamwidth more reliably, even if they would occasionally have to click through to read the whole entry on the site.

Description:
Every now and then someone gets an unusual character in their entry and that character screws up the feed of that journal or community on LJ and probably other places.

One of the answers to this problem would be for LJ and other places to get feed readers that could deal with the occasional weird character, but that's not within our control.

If we could detect characters likely to break things, and replace them with something like [character that will break things was here] (there has got to be a better way to phrase that) only for the syndicated feed, so people reading the entry on their reading page or directly at the entry would see the whole thing, then feed readers on other sites wouldn't get jammed up as often from that problem.

If the feed generator has to replace something, or has to cut off an entry early, it should provide a notice at the bottom of the entry that the version in the feed is incomplete, that to read the original format one should click through to the DW version, and why the feed is incomplete: we detected characters that might break readers.

Poll #8413 Protect outbound feeds from reader-breaking characters

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 45

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
10 (22.2%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
4 (8.9%)

(I have no opinion)
31 (68.9%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[rho]

What sort of characters cause this behaviour?

[alexbayleaf]

This is what I want to know, too, before voting. I'd like to see some examples of this problem in action so I can get a feel for what it looks like, etc.

[azurelunatic]

The example that caused this suggestion is copied and pasted into the answer here: http://www.dreamwidth.org/support/see_request?id=10742

[rho]

OK, thanks. Personally, this seems like too big a change to be making based on a single report. If we got more of a pattern to get a better feel for what's going on then I might change my mind, but for now, I'm going to be voting no.